Operation Roxy - In Progress

Saturday, March 04, 2006

1000 Steps

Well It's 9:30am in the morning. I have been up for 4 hours! Been to the gym, off to the steps climbed and decended and I'm home again having now had my breakfast. I tell you THIS IS CRAZY!

No way in the world would I have ever done this in the past. But let me tell you about it. Let me tell you about the 1000 Steps OF HELL!

Now I knew this wasn't going to be easy. In fact I even knew this was going to be hard. I just didn't realise how hard and how much this was going to HURT.

The 1000 steps start in Ferntree Gully at the very bottom of the Mt Dandenong Ranges. (the carpark at the bottom of the tourist road for those that didn't know) I never knew it was there despite driving past it ALL the time a few years back. Not that I would have been interested back then anyway.

The idea was to get all these people from our gym together (those doing body for life & the biggest loser group along with a few extras) and drive to Ferntree Gully to climb the 1000 steps as a cardio challenge. I woke up at 5:30am (on a saturday morning!) and was at the gym by 6am. The second person there. Quite a group gathered and we had 5 cars and a people mover leave from the gym and a few others met us up at the steps.

There was quite a walk from where we parked the car to the archway which of course was uphill and I was stuffed by that stage already. I looked at another girl who had done this before and said was this the 1km you talked about before the steps. And she said "no this is the walk to get to the walk before the steps" I thought she was joking till we got to that archway where you could clearly see there was another walk ahead.

Stopped at the archway for a stretch and breather before continuing and the trainers tried to tell us there was 100m from archway to steps so run! I'd already been forwarned that it was 1km+ and pretty steep so dont even try a jog so I didn't.

By the time I made it to the steps I needed a rest. I could hardly breathe so I stopped for about a minute and caught my breath before continuing. From there I didn't make it far each time up before I had to rest and regain my breath. Breathing was just out of control. This is really something I have to work on because I feel I could push through the burn I felt as long as I could breathe.

I ended up making it to the last 100 steps (I'm told) before I was told I had to turn around and go back because everyone had been up there for awhile by now.

I thought going down would be easy. But my legs were jelly and wobbled everywhere and it was very hard on the joints. My already sore knee and ankles now caved in and although I made it down I was limping when I got back to the car.

I have decided if I ever miss another cardio class I am forcing myself to do the steps! I will never ever miss a cardio class again!

We will be doing this again in 4 weeks time. Next time I hope to make it to the top.

Geez I'm glad I don't need to do anymore excercise till Monday. I am soooo dead. Highly recommended to anyone looking for a challenge. I believe the head trainer did it in 14min 30seconds today. (OUCH) And everyone I spoke to agreed it was the hardest thing they have ever undertaken in their life. It is "The Kokoda Trail Memorial Walk" because of it's great similarity to the actual trail that our brave soldiers had to go through.

I think next time I might stop and read the plaques rather than sit on them. The Parks website tells me it's 5km return and STEEP. And you should expect to do it in 2 hours. Well at least I know I was on track to do a little better than 2 hours.

Posted by Jadey :: 9:45 AM :: 13 comments